The Slow Dance of the Infinite Stars
by Artemisia-Amore-Cosplay
Summary: {Break x Sharon} - {Spoilers Retrace 92} - "As she walked, slow and determined, she looked like a somnambulist. The light of the moon caressed her cheeks and, by dint of her head which tilted from time to time, it seemed as if the celestial body itself was whispering her what to do. But then - she thought - she did not need the advice of the moon..."


**The Slow Dance of the Infinite Stars**

The light blue chiffon swished faintly on her ankles.

As she walked, slow and determined, she looked like a somnambulist. The light of the moon caressed her cheeks and, by dint of her head which tilted from time to time, it seemed as if the celestial body itself was whispering her what to do. But then - she thought - she did not need the advice of the moon. She was perfectly conscious of the moves she was to perform - her mind had staged them for her a million times. One after the other, her bare feet sank into the cool wet ground, sometimes meeting the grass, more rarely facing some pebbles. Then, suddenly, the water.

Gelid. Piercing.

It would have been like a blade, she found herself thinking. She tilted her head back, her lips disclosed in a painful sigh as she plunged slowly.

It would have been rapid. Panic at first, thereafter peace. She would have deemed her heart about to explode - and then again, what if it did?

As she proceeded in the lake, anticipating and yet dreading the moment in which her feet would have missed the bottom, falling in a vacuum, precipitating her in the abyss, _his _hands appeared in a memory, behind her eyes.

She had latched on to him.

She distinctly remembered the sensation of his warm body fading out breath after breath, until heat concentrated only on his heart, and then - as in a whisper - it vanished into thin air. She distinctly remembered the excruciating, agonizing pain that pierced her heart when his fingers fell on the ground - lifeless, abandoned.

Silence.

Oh, she did remember the silence. All around her, perhaps, someone had even spoken. Reim? A woman? What for? What did it matter? She remembered the silence. That muffled silence which had penetrated her ears, her mind, her eyes, like ice splinters whose aim was killing.

She died with him. She died back then. The silence had told her so. Those cold, abandoned, lifeless fingers on the ground had confirmed it.

The gelid water of the lake kissed her lips. It just touched them lightly at first. Then it became more eager, more aggressing, more suffocating. She closed her eyes and lapsed into that kiss of death which - she thought - should have tasted like any other kiss from any other man. Her tears dissolved in the water. The only kiss she would have tasted had been resting for months on the frozen lips of her first love.

The water invaded her nostrils. She felt her body fight to survive. But she clung to herself. She hugged herself with her own arms. She forced herself to sleep.

To die.

Dreaming…

A feeble light far away…

* * *

During bright summer days like that one, it was not uncommon for students to gather in the gardens of the college. Actually, they did not gather. Rather, they divided into extremely elitist small groups, the admission to which seldom had to do with an authentic, reciprocal liking - quite an insignificant detail when a famous surname matched a remarkable amount of wealthiness. This was the main reason of her unwillingness to join such parties. She preferred by far the company of her books. Books, she thought, don't care about trifles such as the family a person comes from. They love indiscriminately whoever wishes to read them, and whoever is patient and inquiring enough to stay quiet and listen to them. And to her, whose lunches had never been free, who had to work enormously hard to be admitted to a college which would have grant her a brighter future, the friendship offered by a book was an inestimable treasure.

As she walked down the pebbly path, thinking about the curious apparel showed by Professor Higgings during the make-up lecture for his Natural History course, she eyed a plane tree not very far from her. She tilted her head, making the braid of copper hair swing on her shoulders, and with a smile she declared that the tree would have been hers. Or at least, taking possession of a comfortable, cool shady place would have been her purpose, if she hadn't been suddenly hit, losing her balance. She fell on the ground, and so did the books she had hold close to her chest until that very moment. They spread on the grass, and the novel opened, soiling with dirt.

"Are you alright?"

What a silly question. No, she _would have been _alright. She would have been alright if people had been better mannered and - _maybe _- provided always that it weren't too much to ask - if they had acquired the good old habit of learning to watch their steps. But she kept those thoughts for her, and she limited herself to pouting in disdain.

"Come on, I help you to get up…". Again, that voice, baritone and breezy. Was him still there?

"I was eight months old when I learned to walk. I'd say that after seventeen years I should be able to rise on my feet on my own quite easily".

Ignoring the hand the boy was offering her, she turned her back to deal with a question of greater importance: her books. Damn it. He had managed to make her drop them all. Even the…

"…Novel? Oh-oh, "_The crystal fortress_". It looks interesting… Let's have a sample… 'The young diaphanous lady a pure white little foot exposed, and yonder Balderu a soft kiss laid to seal his promise: «Forever I shall be your loyal servant, ojou-sama»'. Someone here likes romances, eh?".

Annoyed, she leaned over the boy and tore the book out of his hands. She pressed it against her chest, protecting her secret. A secret, nevertheless, readily revealed by the intense blushing of her cheeks.

"Have you ever heard about 'courtesy'? Who authorized you to read it?", she murmured, pestered, casting towards the one who looked like a final year student a poisonous glance.

"What is 'ojou-sama'?", enquired the boy, tilting his head on a side. But then he snapped his fingers and unclenched his lips in a defiant smirk. "Does it mean, perhaps, 'surly girl who'd rather die than accepting a favor from a gentleman who offered to help her to get up?'".

Phebe gritted her teeth and clung to her books until her knuckles became white. She remained silent for a few moments, then she pouted and narrowed her eyes.

"Gentleman? I hope the incorrect use of this hyperbole not to be a rough attempt on your part to define yourself as such - not after pushing me down, at least!".

The boy blinked, puzzled. For a little while, it seemed as if he could not see her anymore, so much he was engaged in his thinking, while his mouth chewed a mint cool-scented chewing-gum. As she retrieved her lecture notes on Natural History, Phebe found herself noting such a trivial detail. She raised her hand. She pulled a copper lock away from her face and led it behind her ear. Then she decided to face the boy again.

"May I help you?", she asked, peeved and confused by that silence. Since they hadn't anything more to tell one another, why on earth did he stand there still? The boy moved the baseball from his right hand to the left one gloved by the mitt. Then he ran his fingers through his jet black hair, exposing his face and his bright ice blue eyes. He moved his lips to reply, but…

"Lloyd! Get a move on, mate! We're waiting for you!".

Not far from the plane tree she had eyed earlier, Phebe caught sight of a small group of final year students. She knew some of them by name. Daniel Archery, for example, three times awarded with the Scholarship for Excellence of their college. Why did he hang around with someone like… _That boy?_

Lloyd took the baseball from the mitt and threw it on it again, moving his head to meet her mint-green eyes.

"Aye-up? Are you listening to me?"

The girl blinked. What…? Did he say something? Why was her inattentive, she wondered. She rose on her feet, her books once again pressed against her chest, and she glanced at the boy, looking him up and down before shifting her eyes towards an indefinite point of the blue sky.

"Well, anyway, "gentleman"… Where's the blazer of your uniform?", she remarked to show her most emphatic indifference towards people who do not respect the rules. People like _him. _Like a boy whose shirt collar is unfastened, who chews a mint chewing-gum, and who plays basketball in the courtyard of the college instead of using the break to get a head start with his written assignments, and oh! Heaven knows what kind of reputation he held.

Lloyd's reacted by sniggering.

"Mh? I thought you didn't mind to see me undressed…", he murmured, modulating his voice in a mellow whisper.

Phebe flared, her eyes wide-open with indignation for so much audacity.

"Oh, stop it! I don't even know you!", she replied, and the pitch of her voice became defensively acute.

"Which makes the thing all the more exciting, don't you think?".

She glared him. But Lloyd's eyes, unexpectedly, seemed to pierce her irises like ice would do. For a few seconds, the only thing she could see was red. Red, scarlet, crimson, a heart skipping a beat, a smile - like that of a doll?, a laughter. She felt warm, she felt cold. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by the will to cry and the will to laugh, while a hundred lotus flowers seemed to bloom inside her womb. A lively feeling of dejà vu made her feel dizzy.

"Dude?! Do you need a map to bring the ball back here?", some faraway boys shouted.

Lloyd made a sign towards his friends, then he went back to watching Phebe. He leaned slightly forward to meet her eyes, quickly detached to look at the grass. When finally he succeeded in engage them, he smiled.

"Well then… See ya around… _Ojou-sama_".


End file.
